


A Sky's Game

by EveandJohnny



Category: Mortal Engines Series - Philip Reeve
Genre: Multi, Post-Books, more or less
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-03-01 08:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13290876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EveandJohnny/pseuds/EveandJohnny
Summary: Set in the time frame of the epilogue of "A Darkling Plain", a nameless aviatrix travels the Bird Roads to chart the world on behalf of the World Collaboration. After dozens of wars and the Traction Era, the old maps are no longer reliable. At the same time, a young Aborigine on the continent of Australia fights against ecological destruction. They meet in a fateful incident and soon find themselves in an adventurous chase over the South Pacific.





	1. The Angel Of The Night

**R** ough winds were blowing in from the east, heralding from the first snows to arrive this winter in the mountains around Zhan Shan. It was hard for them to manoeuvre their ship, the _Egill Skallagrimsson_ , but as the skilled aviatrix that they were they always found a way to ride the Bird Roads – no matter how harsh the weather was. But the winds had messed with their schedule. They had been supposed to land an hour ago in a small village called _Pine Valley_ in one of the still green dales that dotted the mountainside.

They leaned forward, looking out of the front window of the gondola. Silvery clouds lined the landscape that the wind tore through.  
They finally saw the makeshift landing strip mown in the tall grass between the pine trees. Slowly cutting the power, they turned the engine pods downwards. Without touching the trees, they set her down soundlessly.  
  A dark-skinned man in a long purple scarf ran towards them and disappeared at the stern to secure the ropes in stakes on the ground. They went up onto the envelopes to cast the camouflage net over the balloons. Then they climbed down again, and opened the hatch, casting one last look around the cabin before leaving it for the night.  
   
“Welcome, _R_ _ā_ _ta k_ _ō_ _d_ _ū_ _ta_! _P_ _ā_ _'ina upatyak_ _ā_ is honoured to have you here. Your reputation runs ahead of you” the man said and bowed before the _Angel of the Night_ , as they were called in old Shan Guo.  
  
 They returned the bow.  
  
With a sweeping gesture, he invited them to his village, a huddle of about a dozen houses build of a peculiar red stone and roofed with wood they assumed originated from the pine trees surrounding the village. The houses all faced a round square where in the middle a blue fire was burning. They admired the unusual colour and were glad to feel heat again. When they spent the whole day in the air it was tough to keep the cold at bay.  
  
  They were greeted by the people of the village with a happy cheer. A tall and lean woman, as dark-skinned as the ambassador and dressed in a similar fashion, came towards her. She offered a hug and said in Airsperanto: _“My name is Prasana. We’re so pleased to accommodate you! You will stay with me tonight if you don’t mind. In your honour we’re having a feast which you will hopefully enjoy._ ”  
  
While they followed their roommate for one night they inquired why the woman was able to speak the language of the Bird Roads.  
She smiled at them. “You see, I once was an aviatrix like you, young and reckless. But those days are long gone. Now I have returned to my place of birth, teaching our children about all the wonders and perils I experienced in my wild times.”  
Prasana led the way to a long table presenting enormous amounts of food. The people gathered around it, and soon blissful chattering arose. They sat between the ambassador, who had introduced himself as Tyag, and Prasana.  
  
  After two weeks of flying over vast plains and sharp mountains, with only rationalized tinned food and the stale water they managed to wangle off the clouds, they were relieved to finally eat and drink a little more pompously. And what delicacies the villagers offered them! Traditional appetizers, main courses and desserts, with meat or vegetarian, extra spicy or pleasantly mild for the international traveller who was not used to overly hot cuisine.  
  They smiled whenever somebody offered them a full plate, talking fast in Nepalese, which they barely understood. Riding the Bird Roads taught them, and indeed, also inquired the use of several languages beside their native Nord. However, their knowledge was too little to hold elaborated talks. It usually sufficed for first understandings and then asking for someone who spoke Anglish or Airsperanto. That's why they thanked them all politely for their offerings, but ended up talking to their seatmates most of the time.

Soon the time had come to retreat. The blue fire had nearly burned down and darkness crept up between the houses. They could sense the unease of their hosts as they hurried to gather plates and cutlery.  
When they stepped into Prasana's home they felt instantly tired. Air travel had taken its toll once more. They barely managed to get changed; fell on the mattress made of sheep wool and started sleeping before their head had fully settled on the pillow.

After a refreshing night, they awoke to sweet chirping outside their window. Prasana was already up, rummaging quietly in the kitchen. They sat up, quickly checked their belongings – nothing had been pilfered – and then permitted themselves a long look outside. In the blueish darkness, shadowy rice fields rolled out for a few hundred yards before the landscape rose again to form stiff peaks, the highest of them shrouded in clouds. Off to the side was the silhouette of an enclosure where the villagers held cattle and a couple of horses to help them with the field work.  
 They got out of the bed and changed into their flying gear: black boots with steal caps, trousers made of a heavy brown fabric, a light white shirt, a red wool pullover, and the inevitable brown scarf.  
 The scent of fried eggs wafted over to the room to which their stomach answered with an expectant rumble. They followed the scent and found breakfast waiting for them. The eggs lay on a vivid bed of steamed vegetables and were accompanied by brown rice. They bowed to Prasana to express their thanks. Together they ate, watching the darkness slowly turn into a pale rosy dawn.  
  They and Prasana finished their breakfast in mutual silence. Afterwards, they shouldered their duffel bag and Prasana escorted them to the _Egill Skallagrímsson_. Tyag was already waiting for them. The rest of the village still slept peacefully after the long feast from the night before, which was understandable as even the sun hadn’t fully risen yet. They bowed to them, thanking both for their hospitality and friendliness. Then they entered the gondola, Tyag loosened the ropes, and the airship glided gracefully into the sky. They waved a last time to their hosts, then turned their gaze towards the Northeast.   
 After their journey over the Southern border of the Former Hunting Ground, today the country of Крупная Равнина, and the Northern frontier of Shan Guo, they flew towards Xiang in the East, where once upon a time China used to lie. Until now, the weather was promising, the rough and cold winds from the previous evening had died down. The view over the mountains was clear, but their trained eye could already make out a gathering of clouds on the far horizon. They tuned their radio to catch the local weather forecasts, and sailed on.

The Angel of the Night had been in the air for half a day now and had left the mountains finally behind. Beneath them on the ground black lines cut through the greens of forests, rice fields and paddocks full of cattle and horses. They set the _Egill Skallagrímsson_ lower to investigate. Now they could see that those lines were metal rails crisscrossing the landscape, accompanied by wires on large wooden poles, identifying them as electric train tracks. After a few minutes of idle watching, a purple electric train sped along, blue wisps of electricity sparking from the wires. They adjusted the speed and followed it down the tracks.  
  New lines came into view. Those were not electric train tracks but big cables supported by wooden masts. They spanned over the country, blurring into the distance, where a grey spot shimmered.  They hoped it to be the city of Guilin, their next drop-off point.  
 They flicked a few levers, changed the course of the _Egill Skallagrímsson_ , and set off to the spot. It took another half hour until they reached its outskirts. On the roof of an abandoned-looking airship hangar the name _Guilin_ was painted, indicating that this used to be an airfield of, indeed, the city of Guilin.  
 About fifty years ago, nearly every big city had such an airfield, but the number was decreasing. They couldn’t serve the _Mag-Lev_ vehicles used as airships, so administrations built new, more complicated airports.  
 They spotted Guilin’s airport in the North of the city, glinting in the piercing sunlight. A little off to the West was a big construction side, a handful of cranes perched in the sandy pit and small _Mag-Lev_ vehicles floated busily in and out of it. Around the side, half a dozen electric train tracks led through the city, stopping short at the hole. They assumed that they were building an electric rail station, beside the _Mag-Lev_ airports another new way of transportation that had been designed in the past hundred years.  
  Scanning the city with binoculars, they finally discovered what they’d been looking for: the town hall. Satisfied, they let the ship ascend and it drifted off to the hem of a forest, where they set it down. They went out of the gondola to secure the ship, then clambered up in the envelopes to unfurl the camouflage net, hiding the entire ship from curious looks.  
 Back in the gondola, they sat down in front of their organized working space. Heaps of rolled-up maps were neatly stacked between jars of paints and brushes, along with rulers, goniometers, and dividers. They unrolled a paper sheet they had been working on the past week, and secured it with paper weights on the corners. Armed with a ruler and a pencil, they added missing longitudes and latitudes. Then they carefully drew what they’d seen today: how the landscape fell from high mountain cliffs to lush green ranks; added the cables whose function they still didn’t know, and electric train tracks leading to Guilin and its unfinished station.

Within two hours, they had covered the entire page, marking therewith the end of their effort. They reviewed their work, and after having checked everything twice for possible mistakes, they added it to the stacks of finished maps. Then they trolled a cardboard box from beneath the desk, and packed them all neatly into it. They set the parcel aside and grabbed a pile of papyrus as well as a fountain pen. The pen scratched over the sheets as they wrote down the report that was due every two months. Once or twice they looked up on the map pinned on eye level in front of them to get the general direction right. It was a very plain map, only vague contours of the continents and oceans, with dots marking a big city here and there, and the rough outlines of countries. It was their job to specify the map: correct the shapes of the continents, improve the position of cities and add more, and revise the borders of the continents, as well as subjoin regional peculiarities like mountains, rivers, and infrastructure.  
  With the destruction of ODIN, the last atmospheric entity had vanished and so far no country had managed to send new satellites or similar objects into space. That was the reason why no overview over the whole earth was possible. So, the World Collaboration brought forth the idea of somebody flying over the world and mapping it out.

After putting in the report and cording the parcel with string, they wrote down the address of the Bürgermeister of Weimar. They left the package on her swivel chair in front of the control panel and went up onto the gas bags, removing the camouflage net again.  
 When they were in the air they didn’t mind that everyone saw their ship, heck, they’d even painted red teeth on the front of the gondola. It didn’t get more obvious than that. But when on the ground, they had to keep a certain secrecy.

  Back over Guilin, they descended towards the tall tower of the town hall, where a member of the mayor's office was waiting on the circular balcony. They gave him the parcel on a hooked pole, where he in return left a note with their new destination. That's how it always went. They saluted him as they took the note from the hook, then disappeared in the gondola. Before they had a look on the note, they flew a little higher and away from the city. In a safe distance and height, they turned on the autopilot and read the paper. The mayor of Guilin thanked them in the name of the World Collaboration for their efforts and kindly asked them to fly south to the continent of Australia.  
  Their reports about this island were of great importance as they were supposed to help finally end the discussion if Australia was permitted to keep its status as a continent or if it had to be degraded down to a simple island.  
 They adjusted the course. Another look out of the window let their good mood drop. The clouds they'd noticed earlier had darkened by a great amount and were moving faster than clouds usually do. They could really see them spinning. They groaned. A tornado formed there, right in front them. Looking around, they discovered a small batch of forest, where the trees stood more or less optimal to land in between. They manoeuvred over the trees, and carefully descended. The first raindrops fell softly from the sky, leaving dark blotches in the sandy earth underneath the trees. They hurried out of the gondola to secure the ship among the trees and already heard the roaring storm approaching.


	2. A Dicey Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The young Aborigine Adeanah Woodworth discovers a case of environmental destruction and she has to do something!

**A** bout six thousand miles away, on the continent of Australia, a young woman was going after her usual business. Adeanah - a voluptuous Aborigine with tied-up black hair, dressed in a park ranger’s uniform and heavy hiking boots - stood in front of a huge Eucalyptus tree in the woods that surrounded the always-has-been-stationary town of Pilliga. The smell of the tree wafted mesmerizingly through the air.   
  She measured its girth at several places and then wrote the results in a prepared table. What she noted let her frown and left her worried. The circumference of the tree had decreased slightly, but noticeably, since the last time she had checked on it. A look on its leaves didn’t do much to calm her; on the contrary, they held more bad news. A certain kind of bug had nested on the bottom, leaving behind nothing but black foliage. It could only do its perilous work because something was weakening the tree. She took out a soil drill from her tool kit and bored several holes into the ground around the tree, varying in depth. Then she scooped up the samples and stored them in airtight containers so she could examine them later. Warily eyeing her surroundings, she discovered a narrow creek flowing past the tree not far away. She got up from her crouched position and walked over. There was nothing suspicious to the stream but she collected a few samples from it along a distance of a few yards anyway.  
   The first heavy raindrops started to patter through the thick leave roof above her. Adeanah gathered her equipment and hurried towards her air vehicle.  
  The first to use the technology of magnetic levitation were the inhabitants of New London. They hoisted a suburb of the once mighty Traction City on levitating devices and escaped the radioactive ruin that used to be their hometown. In the past centuries, this technology had been used increasingly to create structures from more flying cities to smaller airships right down to car-like automobiles powered by this noiseless and environmentally friendly drive.   
  Adeanah was glad that less and less fuel-powered vehicles polluted the earth. It was already in a fragile state. After the end of the Traction Era, the earth had recovered rather well, the once rutted Western, Northern and Southern territories of her home continent were again plain and, were the climate allowed it, also green. But the new technology had also had its downsides. It had enabled people from the now still-standing Traction Cities to travel North-West to Assinwati, the former Dead Continent. Now it was as populated as the other continents and the world populace continued to grow which harboured the risk of overpopulation anew.

Adeanah drove home and forced herself to think about something else than the possible reasons for the bad results in her field research. The rain splattered noisily on the windscreen, turning the dark soil beneath her into thick mud. To drown out her thoughts she inserted a square-shaped, about a half inch thick card into a slot on her dashboard. Immediately, the soft humming noise of a remote didgeridoo filled the interior, before an electric guitar started screeching. She smiled and thrummed on the steering wheel along the rhythm.

Loud barking arose when Adeanah reached the small brick building at the outskirts of the town she called home. She set down the vehicle, and, as soon as she exited it, a big bundle of black, curly hair and a lolling tongue jumped around her legs nearly causing her to trip. Bending down, she patted her dog Inala on the head and followed her down the sloppy path to the front door. She discarded her dirty boots in a corner of the tiny mudroom, and then made her way to the kitchen to put on the kettle. While the water started to boil, she deposited her samples in the laboratory-like working space in her library and prepared everything for a further examination. She lit about a dozen of candles and joss sticks to scare off the darkness that pressed in from outside.  
 The kettle rang, calling her back to the kitchen, and she poured the boiling water over a handful of mint leaves. With the steaming cup in hand, she went over to her desk, Inala the whole time at her heels.   
  It was hard to examine a sample of earth when you didn’t really know what you were looking for. But she had her suspicions. There was a fertilizing factory not far from here and although they claimed to dispose only a low amount of salt and potash residues into the river she doubted that they really did. Reducing the quantity of salt in the wastewater was highly expensive and required special equipment. However, producing fertilizers didn’t spawn enough money to fully defray those costs plus generate a profit. A change in climate had altered the face of the continent quite drastically, beside the damage of the Traction Cities, and now regions that used to be lifeless deserts sprouted grass and bushes and therefore made excellent agriculture land.   
  But speculations would not solve this problem so she set up the spectroscope and calibrated it properly. Her work as a park ranger required her to be proficient in chemistry as well as in biology.   
                                                              
   She knew it! The concentration of kali residues was much higher than in earlier collected samples from a river not affected by the factory. She discovered the same result in all other tests and even in those of the soil around the tree. Now she was able to prove the crimes against nature the company was committing. She couldn’t do it, however, because coincidentally four members of the board of directors were locally acclaimed politicians, and none of them would risk their second income. So she had to recourse to more drastic measurements than filing an ecological complaint against the company. She would take matters in her own hand. A friend of hers worked at the building authority downtown, and he still owned her favour. Why not cashing in on it now?   
 She got up from her chair, picked up her purse, and ambled over to the mud room. Inala was following her excitedly, anticipating a walk.  
  Adeanah crouched down before, cuddling her intensively. “Yes, honey, we’re going out, getting you some exercise. You’ve been a good girl, staying at home and waiting for me all day.” From the counter beside the entrance door she grabbed the leash and put it around her dog’s neck. Then she got up again and threw over her rain coat though it had ceased raining in the meantime.

   The walk downtown took about an hour. On the way, she met her mum who was out and about with a bunch of ladies from the retirement home she worked at. They had been to the book shop in need of new supplies for their reading circle held twice a week. The elderly women were cooing over Inala, and Adeanah and her mum gossiped about the fling the mayor was supposed to have. The rumour mill was running wild at the moment. Then another shower of rain dispersed the gathering, driving the ladies back to the retirement home and Adeanah further on her way to the administration building.

It seemed to be her lucky day as her friend Michael was at work. She greeted him with a cunning smile.  
 “Michael! Long time no see! What have you been doing lately?”

He eyed her suspiciously over the rim of his glasses. “Adeanah! What a lovely surprise.” Judging from his tone, he wasn’t half as pleased as she was, he probably knew this was not going to end comfortable for him.

  Adeanah looked around vigilantly, then leaned over the counter in a conspiratorial manner. “I was wondering if you could do me a favour. Remember the last six times I babysat your little brothers?” She raised a meaningful eyebrow.

  Michael sighed in defeat. “Yeah, I owe you for that.”

“Exactly. Now I was thinking you could redeem your debts in a way Mother Nature and therewith the whole of Pilliga would benefit-“

  He cut her off, groaning. “I feel I know where this is leading and I’m sure as hell not going to like it.”

“Probably not, but remember it’s for the greater good. Don’t do it for me, do it for the preserve.” She grinned, her finger tapping confidently on the counter.

His shoulders slumped. “What other choice do I have anyway? Fine, what is it?”

“I need the construction plan from the fertilizing company in West-Pilliga.”

He shot her a distrustful look. “What do you need them for?” he asked, stopping in getting up from his swivel chair.

“Pardon me, but that’s none of your business. The less people know, the better. Now can you just hurry a little?”

He threw his hands in the air, stating nonverbally “Why me?” and trudged off to the shelves. He took his sweet time to look for it, just to annoy her, but she didn’t oblige to get irritated. At length, he had found the file in question. “I suspect that you also need a copy of them?”

She smiled syrupy at him. “That would be grand, thank you!”

Rolling his eyes, he put them into the copying device. It started rattling, and alcoholic fumes rose from it. Adeanah eyed it with wariness.  
 “Whenever I see such a thing I suspect it to explode in the next minute.”

“Huh? Oh, well, you get used to it. We just need to open the windows. Otherwise we would be drunk by lunch break.”  
 When the device was finished, Michael took the copied plans and handed them to Adeanah, making sure that he hadn’t confused original and copy.

“Thanks a mill, Michael. I promise I won’t get in trouble with it.”

He sighed. “I wouldn’t bet on that. Just be careful, Ade, will you?”

“I promise!” she called when she left the administration office.

   Back home, she eagerly spread the plans on her kitchen table and examined them thoroughly. After half an hour of properly reading the details she finally allowed herself a grin. She couldn’t believe how easy it was to get in. Every security measure was indicated on the plan, including two watch dogs at the back gate, and those measures were just ridiculous. Did they really think it was so unlikely that anyone would break into the factory? But she was the last to complain. That just made her plan so much easier. She rolled the copy up and hesitated a moment, not sure were to store it. Then she decided on taking it with her, just in case anything went wrong and they would come to do a house search. But she hoped that she would be careful enough to not let it happen.   
  Every doubt that crept up in her mind and tried to persuade to not go was pushed aside. This was for the greater good, as she had told Michael, and if she didn’t do anything, nobody would. To drown out the intrusive thoughts, she switched on her stereo and inserted a music card into it. Then she started packing.   
  For the dogs, she injected sleeping drops into sausages. She still had the drops in her medicine chest from when Inala had suffered from a panic attack that nothing else would stop. They were of vegetable origin so she didn’t worry about the well-being of the dogs afterwards. Then she fetched the rope and hook she usually used for climbing trees from her shed. She had chosen a trap door for her entrance and she didn’t know how far down it would go from there.


	3. Bold And Breakneck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adeanah finally takes matter into her own hands.

The dogs guarding the area around the factory were still sleeping when Adeanah crept up to the entrance. She knelt in the dried-out grass that surrounded the tall, heavy brick pillars on each side of the gate and peered around them. The deep breaths and the occasional snoring of the dogs were the only noises heard in the almost touchable darkness. She pulled the two primed sausages from her backpack and skewered them on a pole, then threaded it through the bars. Fiddling, she tried to place the sausages in front of the dogs, which took more time than she preferred. Finally, they came off and she pulled the pole back, purposely clanking it on the grids to wake the dogs. She only heard them sniffing as she hid behind the pillar. Intense listening told her that they had found the sausages and were munching happily. She waited another minute or two before she risked a glance around the column. With their tongues lolling out of their mouths, the dogs lay on their backs, limbs stuck into the air. She allowed herself a sigh as the first stage of the plan had worked. She got up and oiled the hinges before she picked the lock. Ever so carefully, she opened the wing and slipped through the opening, closing it behind her. She stepped over the dogs and tiptoed to the factory, which loomed over her, making her feel small and meaningless. Spitefully, she went further, with her back pressed to the wall, to the trap door she had figured would be the easiest entrance. She knelt beside it and fidgeted with the lock, a simple model that nearly gave way at the pure sight of her false key. A deep, dark hole yawned at her knees where there was no ladder in sight. She had suspected such unwelcoming circumstances, so she had brought a rope with a hook on which she now descended into blinding darkness. Unfortunately, the rope was too short; it ended before her feet reached the ground, so she had no other option than to jump down and pull the rope with her. Because the room - or however this was called where she stood in - was so dark, she couldn’t prevent the hook from clunking down on the ground. She flinched and anxiously held her breath, waiting for guards to snatch her. As nothing happened, and she also couldn’t hear any alarm going off near or far, she relaxed a little. Her hands wandered over the mossy ground until she found the hook and put it back into her bag. Only now did she dare to light a lantern. She stood in a circular room whose ceiling vanished in obscurity. The stone walls seemed to be polished and it appeared that this had been used as a well once.   
Had it been a mistake, a huge mistake, to choose this trap door?   
But she didn’t want to give up just yet. She looked closer at the wall, knocking on the stones one by one. Many of them didn’t resonate and sounded dull, and now she was indeed very close to giving up, when, suddenly, the one stone in front of her made a faint noise different from the others. It sounded as if there was a cavity behind it. She thumped on the stones surrounding her discovery and they all echoed in the same fashion. A determined smile appeared on her face, she fished the hook out of her bag and started swinging it. After it had picked up enough pace, she smashed it into the wall, and the first stones cracked. She repeated the process several times until they crumbled away into a big heap of rubble. She tucked the hook back, and peered carefully through the hole. A dim light glowed at the end of a low tunnel, but at what distance it shone was not immediately clear. She picked up her lantern and clambered through the hole. On her knees, she crawled through the tunnel, hitting her head once or twice on a protruding stone. With every step, the weak light grew brighter, and before short, she stuck her head through a round hole. The light originated from an emergency exit lamp above the door opposite of the hole. The room it illuminated looked abandoned, it was full of cobwebs and layers of dust. There were cracks in the concrete walls spreading like a river delta, and loose cables drooped over grimy metal shelves like lazy snakes. From the ceiling, water dropped into grey puddles, and when it hit the copper strands exposed from their lagging, it sizzled angrily.   
She squeezed through the hole that was considerably smaller than the one she had hacked into the wall of the well. Hauling herself the last bit through, it took her a moment to stand safely on the dirty floor between the cables. It would have been rather unfortunate if she accidentally got smacked by an electric shock in such a vital state of her plan. Tiptoeing over the hazards in her way to the door, she prayed that it wasn’t secured by an alarm. She closed her eyes and reached for the knob. No electricity here; that was good sign. Still, she scrunched her face and turned the knob, preparing for the worst. When nothing happened, the door didn’t even creak, she dared to open her eyes, hesitating. In front of her stretched a long corridor where on each side more cables were snaking across the walls. The corridor was a little lower than her height so she had to walk with her head inclined. Her neck started aching after a short while, and she was already considering on maybe getting on all fours, when she noticed a door only a few yards away. She quickened her pace and, after opening the door, found herself in a dimly-lit staircase. Hesitating to actually go upstairs she looked around, lurking in the shadows in case there were any cameras filming the premises. When she didn’t spot any, she carefully descended up the stairs and then came to a halt in front of massive steel door. She sighed. Yet another obstacle that might be alarmed. She grew tired of the anxiety all this was causing her. But she had come too far now to give up. So she applied her proven, tried and tested method of closing her eyes and carefully pushing down the door handle once more. Nothing alarming happened. This was getting more and more ridiculous.   
  She peered inside the room she had found in the corridor behind the steel door and discovered an office-looking-like room. The only light came from a lonesome computer screen that spilled a blueish glow into the darkness. Once her eyes had adjusted to the dimness, she went over to the computer to see what it displayed. There was the picture of a sheep jumping over a fence as lock screen which made her shake her head. She pushed the mouse around and a field appeared where she was supposed to type in a password. Her lips formed a tight line. For a reason that escaped her at the moment she hadn’t anticipated this. But she wouldn’t let herself be stopped by it. She looked around the desk and pulled open a drawer. There was a small notebook wedged between some loose documents. She took it out and opened. A laugh escaped her lips and she quickly covered her mouth. The password was indeed written down on one of the first pages of the notebook. She couldn’t believe her luck. A tiny voice inside her head warned her that this was going all way to smoothly but she ignored it. Instead, she typed in the password. The background changed, now it was a picture from the terribly ugly factory. On the left side of the desktop, there were a handful of software applications and folders. She clicked on one that read “annual programme”.  
  “Like, how stupid are they?” she muttered to herself and opened the folder. Beside several documents labelled with meaningless numbers there also was a slide show titled “Innovation is our superpower”. She snorted at such pretentiousness and clicked on it. While she scrolled through the slides, her amusement turned into anger and then into absolute hatred. This had nothing to do with innovation, this was pure destructive frenzy. The company proposed to tear down a good chunk of the national parks, among them _her_ national park, because the stratums underneath harboured more salt deposits. Instead of just acknowledging that fertilizer was not necessary anymore in many parts of the continent, they wanted to destroy the top-notch soil to make fertilizer necessary again. What a perfidious plan. Adeanah was fuming the longer she read through the slides. In fact, she became so livid that she grabbed the computer which stood below the desk and smashed it to the ground, leaving it in shatters. The crash snapped her back to reality. All her cautiousness had been for the birds. She cursed herself colourfully. Then she already heard heavy footsteps approaching the office. The door was torn open and a couple of guards in bulletproof vests blocked the exit. Thankfully they were unarmed.  
 “Don’t move!” one of them shouted and pointed a finger at Adeanah. She didn’t obey to his order, instead quickly looked around and found a solid-looking chair. With a beastly cry she ran forwards, shielding herself with the chair and then using it as a battering ram when she hit the guards. They tumbled backwards, arms flailing in the air like windmills, desperate to find balance. But there was nothing they could get hold of so they crashed to the floor, Adeanah and the chair on top of them. She pushed it down on them and then ran for her life. Once the guards managed to get up she was out of reach around the next corner of the corridor. Instead of following her, one of them hit the alarm button that was sealed in a little box a little further down the corridor and immediately a siren started bellowing. The corridors were tinted in the red light of spinning drill lamps.  
 A handful of guards emerged at the next when Adeanah reached it but she dodged them when she opted for the next corridor instead. This exit was still unguarded and she was immensely relieved to stumble into fresh air. By now the whole premise was light as day. Spotlights were illuminating the grounds and every possible hiding spot. Adeanah took a second to catch her breath and tried to calm her thumping heart. When it became obvious that hiding spots were non-existent she faced the inevitable and started to run.


	4. A Chance Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adeanah's plan went horribly wrong. Thankfully coincidence - or is it fate - sends someone to the rescue.

**I** n the blinding light of the search beams Adeanah could suddenly make out two oval shapes closely side by side. She squinted and saw red teeth on yellow ground peeking out between the flickering rays. She didn’t know what that was - _Mag Lev_ airships could not fly so close to each other and had certainly not such dashing painting on them. But she thanked her Gods for this unexpected but welcome change of events.

Loud shouting tore her out of her prayers and she realized that the guards had nearly caught up with her. She looked behind her and the blood froze in her veins. Running faster, but still having her gaze tacked on her persecutors, she straight up collided with something in front of her, making a surprised scream escape from her lips. She turned her head and saw a rope ladder dangling there. Without much of a second thought, she grabbed it firmly and started climbing. The rope was being pulled up so she just held tight after a few feet of climbing and watched in amazement how the raging guards grew smaller and smaller beneath her feet. When they were only a feeble spot somewhere on the ground, she finally looked up. Above her, an airship with two green gasbags hovered, partly hidden by the clouds. She clambered up the ladder until she reached the hatch, sweat-soaked and completely out of breath. She allowed herself a break, but soon chilly air flowed in and she started to shiver. So she rolled the ladder in and looked around, spotting a lever next to the opening. When she pulled it, the hatch closed automatically. She let out a deep breath and surveyed where she was. A low and short alleyway stretched onto either sides, and opposite of her was a narrow door with a picture of a dragon tacked to it. To the right, a doorless room with vague rectangle shapes disappeared in darkness. To the left, from under a door, faint light spilled into the corridor. She coughed as if to pluck up her courage, and then knocked on the door.

“Come in”, a distinctively low and full voice answered. The door creaked slightly when she entered. Right ahead of her, in front of a complex looking panel full of levers, gauges and blinking lights, a blonde person sat in a swivel chair, wearing a red wool pullover and goggles in their hair.

As her good upbringing had taught her, she hastily introduced herself “Er, hello, my name Adeanah Woodworth. Thank you so much for rescuing me.”

The stranger just shook their head, blonde locks bouncing excitedly. “Not for that. You must have your reasons to intrude into a fertilizing factory. And you must have been desperate because you went in there all alone.”

Adeanah was stunned at this pretty accurate analysis and didn’t know how to respond. To cover that up, she blurted out “And who are you?”

The stranger answered, without looking at her “An aviatrix. In Shan Guo they call me _rata ko duta_ which means _Angel of the Night_ , elsewhere I have other names. But nothing of importance really.”

Adeanah was too dumbfounded to answer first, but then her rage kicked in. “What does that mean, ‘nothing of importance’? You have to have a name! Everybody has a name! You need a name to buy this ship, to earn a living, to - I don’t know - for everything!” She breathed heavily when she finished.

The blonde stranger sighed and finally turned around. Adeanah’s rage faltered a little at the beauty she saw herself presented with. The stranger had a delicate face; bottle green eyes stood tight together, the nose pointed slightly upwards and the mouth was from a fine pink colour. Their tone had softened a little when they spoke again. “Yes, that usually applies to people. But not to me. I know that I come from the Northern Tribes and that I spent my childhood and my early teen years in an orphanage in Murnau. I don’t know how I got there or how this happened - “ they pulled the right glove from their hand and revealed a metal prosthesis. Adeanah gasped but the stranger ignored it. “- I only know that it has always been this way. Never in this process did I receive a proper name. The closest I got was the nickname ‘Blondie’ for obvious reasons. Anyway, have a seat please, Adeanah. The best thing is that I take you home, okay?”

She, however, firmly shook her head. “No, I can’t go home. They will find and silence me. I tried to sabotage the plant to stop them from polluting the water anymore. But I found plans for an even more aggressive destruction. Just as Australia is finally green again, they want to turn it back into a devastated no man’s land. Allegedly for human’s sake, but how perverted is that?” The aviatrix didn’t answer, only stared out into the night that was slowly dissolving into dawn. “You don’t want to talk? Fine, I don’t need to talk, either.” Adeanah pouted and crossed her arms in front of her.

Adeanah’s host chuckled. “I appreciate your company but I was thinking about what to do next.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. By the way, I can’t stand that you don’t have a name. So, I decided to call you ‘Nemo’ from now on”, she declared in a semi-formal tone.

They chuckled again. “Well, seems fitting to me. I am a nobody of some sorts. That’s why I don’t have a stationary house where I could bring you to. You are already there.”

Adeanah looked around the gondola. “The airship is your home?”

Nemo nodded. “The _Egill Skallagrímsson_ is more than that. She’s been my companion for ten years now.”

“But that’s a strange name, isn’t it? What kind of language is this even?”

They smiled. “It’s not strange. That was the name of a poet in the ancient period of the Vikings. But yes, it sounds weird to someone who is not familiar with Northern herit-“

Before they could finish, Adeanah jumped up from where she was sitting. “Dear Gods! No, we have to go to my home immediately! My dog Inala is still there. I can’t just leave her; maybe they use her against me in one way or the other!”

After a heartbeat of silence Nemo said “So, where do you live?”

“Uhm, in Pilaga, that’s east of here, I suppose.”

“You suppose so?”

“Well, I don’t know where we’ve flown by now. But the factory is about two miles west from where I live.”

Nemo bent down under the table, rummaged in a box at their feet and finally appeared with a rolled-up map in their hands. They spread it in front of them and waved Adeanah to them. “So, the factory is here and Pilaga is -“ They traced a line of what were about two miles on the scale of the map “-here.” Adeanah nodded in agreement. Nemo adjusted a few levers and turned the airship inthe opposite direction.

 

After they had successfully rescued Adeanah’s dog and a bit of provisions, they settled a few miles off in the luxuriantly green forest. Adeanah helped Nemo setting the camouflage net.

“You know what, Nemo?”

“What?”

“I’m not really tired at the moment. Though it has been a long day, I still feel quite awake. What about you?”

“To be honest, me too. This has been an exciting day, why we don’t we make a little campfire and wait till the tiredness sweeps over us?”

Adeanah nodded, a bright smile on her face. “Brilliant idea! Can you finish this here alone? I’ll go down and prepare everything.” Nemo nodded, then climbed further down the rail to secure the net.  


When they came down, a cozy fire crackled at the stern. Adeanah and her dog already sat there, she was busy preparing their nightly snack. “It’s been a while that I camped with somebody. My job is pretty lonely.” Nemo seated themselves across from her.

Adeanah looked up. “Then why do you do it?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love it. I get to see the whole world and I’m a solitary person.” Adeanah eyed them thoroughly with an indecipherable look, then shrugged and took a bite from a roll she had baked the evening before she went on her mission.

After a few moments of silent but mutual munching, Nemo said “Those rolls are delicious. You seem to have a hand for cooking.”

Adeanah smiled. “Make that baking and you’re quite right. But in cooking I only have the basic skills. My mom is better at it. What about you?”

Nemo chuckled. “The possibilities to refine my skills are limited when I only have two gas cookers and about one square metre of space. I don’t really know where I stand in that matter. But there’s one thing I’m quite excellent at, if I may be so immodest.”

Adeanah arched an eyebrow. “And that is?”

Nemo smiled and reached into the pocket at the calf of her cargo pants. They pulled out a harmonica, put it at their mouth and blew one long, low tune. They continued to play a melody that was so full of sorrow that Adeanah’s heart ached. She buried her hand in Inala’s fur and looked into the far distance, trying to control the tears that threatened to stream down her face.

They sat there for another half hour, quietly finishing their meal. Adeanah wanted to ask more about their personal life, how they’d come into the possession of the airship or what their life had been at the orphanage. But even though Nemo didn’t radiate rejection there was something that made her hesitant in approaching them. Instead, she soon announced “Nemo, I’d like to go to bed. Would you mind showing me where I can sleep tonight?”

Nemo swallowed the last bits of their carrot and nodded, then led the way inside the airship. The doorless room that she had seen earlier when she had been rescued turned out to be the cargo room. Nemo arranged a few straw bags and covered them with a heavy and scratchy blanket. “I’m sorry that I don’t have anything else at hand at the moment” they apologized.

Adeanah waved dismissively. “Don’t be. I’m sure it’s alright.”

“Well, then, I, ah, just get you another blanket from upstairs and maybe I can also find a spare pillow somewhere. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Adeanah sat down on the makeshift bed and frowned about its uncomfortableness. But it was already more than enough Nemo was doing for her so she wouldn’t complain. Her dog had made herself comfortable beside the bag that served as the foot of the bed. She scratched her ears, earning a content hum, then the dog drifted into sleep and started snoring. Adeanah rolled her eyes. She suspected that sleep wouldn’t be her companion this night.

Nemo reappeared with a red blanket draped over their arm. “There you go, I really hope it all works for you.” They handed the blanket to Adeanah, then looked at the dog and smiled. “At least Inala seems to like it here. Anyway, my room is up in the left gasbag if there’s anything you need. Good night then?”

“Good night, Nemo. And thanks again.”

This time it was Nemo who waved. “Not for this.” They nodded at her, then left the cargo room. On their way up to their room they thought for the first time since the tumultuous events earlier about their actual mission. It was in fact not bad at all that they were now accompanied by a local who could help with creating accurate maps. With that thought, they flopped down on the bed and immediately fell asleep.


	5. Outrageous!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nemo's random collaboration with the saboteur Adeanah is discovered quicker than the two could have hoped.

On the top tier of the former Traction City Weimar one had a magnificent view over the hilly landscape that had been the uplands of Central Europe a long time ago. Countless birds chirped in the thick and many beech trees lining the paths in the garden on the tier, which was protected by a drystone wall several feet high. The central path led from the entrance in a straight line to the castle at the northern end, parting the garden in the middle. The castle and the belonging park once were the heart of a small village nearby when Weimar had been stationary. The village was part of the first batch of prey Weimar had eaten after its transformation into a moving city. Only the park had been rescued and made the prestigious object where the Bürgermeister resided and held representative meetings. The town hall was located on the tier below, together with a museum that explored lost cultures and religions of Weimar. One of them, for example, was called “Weimar Classicism” and some of its gods held the curious names Goethe, Schiller or Anna Amalia, their original attribution, however, could not be clarified without any doubt.

  Weimar’s current Bürgermeister Oskar von Bruchsal entered the elevator that would take him onto the top tier. He was joined by his wife Eleonore and his deputy. After a minute, the cabin emerged into gleaming sunlight bathing the green oasis and creating the perfect backdrop for the events to come.  
  There was another park on tiers three and four which was open to the public and accommodated an artificial river.    
Leading a procession of city council members, he walked towards the still closed gate. On an invisible sign, it opened with a creaking noise, making the Bürgermeister slightly cringe. He made a mental note to order a janitor to fix it. Weimar gates did not creak.  He stopped halfway to the gate in front of a delicate fountain to wait for those now entering the park. A colourful group spilled through the gate, led by a short Filipino transman in a crisp pantsuit. He was followed by several people of different skin tones, heights, and shapes. Von Bruchsal greeted every one of them with a firm handshake, then indicated a long table accompanied by comfy garden chairs. He chose the seat at the head of the table. After a lot of shuffling, chairs sliding over grass, and low chattering, everyone had managed to find a seat. Von Bruchsal looked around the park for a minute, then spotted what he’d been looking for in the shade of a tree and waved it towards him. A strange, towering creature, nearly eight feet tall, materialized in the sunlight and came clankingly towards him. Wires connected its head with its torso, its face was an immobile steel mask, and his whole body looked like impenetrable armour. It marched to the table until it stood beside it and moved no more.

Von Bruchsal nodded to it, then clapped his hands audibly, catching the table’s attention. “Welcome, welcome! It is my pleasure to host this year’s meeting of the World Collaboration. I want to start the assembly off on a very positive note: only this morning I received a new report alongside a map of our dear delegate, the Nameless One. They recently travelled over Central Asia, covering the countries of Крупная Равнина, Shan Guo and Xiang. Their reports read very excitingly and interestingly, same quality as the ones before, and her maps make another puzzle piece in our aim to chart the world. You find copies of her report at your seats and my deputy Ludwig Diek will present the maps to us shortly. But before that I will give you a chance to have a look at the report.” He sat down and sipped at his wine to moisten his dry throat. His Anglish was not the best, he spoke with a heavy accent, but good enough to interact with foreign mayors without a translator.

 While his guests read in silence, he observed them like a proud father watched his offspring. Everybody had accepted his invitation, and only one, the mayor of New London, had to politely refuse as a flu epidemic had swept over his city and had infected him as well. Hosting a summit of the World Collaboration was always a particular honour for von Bruchsal. After the events that led to the stasis of Traction Cities, Traktionstadt Weimar was a smoking ruin with thousands of lives lost. It stood in the furrowed plains in the east of Central Asia, immediately abandoned after the attack. In the following years, it rusted and declined in a kind of fairy tale sleep, waiting for a reawakening. This, however, proved to be much more difficult than the Weimar population had expected. Reviving Weimar was not the problem, many of both Traction and Anti Traction Cities had offered their help in various kinds – ranging from materials to human resources like mechanics or nurses, whatever was needed. When the Weimar inhabitants, however, had expressed the wish to move the entire city back to its approximate original location in the West of the Former Hunting Ground, many feared that the Traction Era could start anew. In long and heated debates mayors from all over the world, even from Nuevo Maya and the lately populated Dead Continent (which was still looking for a new name at this point), struggled for a possible compromise. Once or twice, it was proposed to put Weimar on the magnetic levitation devices that had saved New London and were used more widespread since then. But the technology had not been that far advanced to carry such a huge city into the air. In the end, it took two generations until the technology was fully developed, and until the people of Weimar, who had sought refuge in other cities, could finally bring their home to the place where it started its race around the world, roughly at least.  So hosting this conference felt like another needed payback to the world community from Weimar. Von Bruchsal felt incredibly grateful to them, even though he had been born in a Weimar that had stood where it stood now. He used every opportunity to prove that unlike the last time, Weimar would be the last – if ever – city to endanger its environment.

Clapping tore him out of his thoughts. The other mayors looked at him expectantly, a few had raised their hands.  “Ah, I see there are remarks. What are your thoughts about it, _Frau_ Chenxi? Or is there anything you want to correct in the reports as it directly concerns Guilin, the city of yours?” von Bruchsal asked, indicating to the person in question, a tall Chinese woman with a black bob and piercing eyes.

 “The part about our city and our district is very accurate. I’m always taken a little aback by her wonderfully graphic style, yet everything is scientifically precise. There really is nothing I could add.”

Suddenly, the faint hum of a small _Mag-Lev_ messenger ship drifted over to the party. They all looked around, and von Bruchsal rose from his seat. The ship ascended on portside, its superstructures now peeking over the drystone wall. The captain of the ship, a man with fair skin, a hooked nose and flaxen hair, stood at the railing, waving von Bruchsal towards him. Quicker than his large figure would suggest, he rushed to him and bent over the wall. The captain handed him a big letter, saluted, and then turned around to steer the ship away from the city. Von Bruchsal tore the envelope impatiently open and looked at the message. He scanned it and gasped, then had a look at the picture that was attached to it. Shock widened his eyes and he muttered “ _Große Güte!_ ” Everyone at the table was standing by now and craned their necks to try and catch a glimpse of what had made von Bruchsal lose his composure. He briskly strode over to the table exclaimed: “It is impossible! Our delegate is supposed to be part of an ecotage act on a potash factory in Australia. The board of the factory sent me a report along with a photo that is supposed to prove the treacherous act. I cannot believe it!” He breathed heavily and handed the papers around.

Those who laid their eyes on them gasped as he had and were, after a moment of stunned confusion, furiously chatting about this offensive incident. 

“It could be a misapprehension, you know. Maybe someone wants to set us on the wrong track”, the Filipino transman remarked. 

“But the picture! It is an irrevocable evidence!” somebody cried.

The Filipino rose from his seat and gestured wildly with his hands. “Do not think this! The picture can be tinkered with to discredit them.” 

Von Bruchsal pounded his fist on the table. “Stop it! Sit down everybody! Now, as unbelievable as this whole affair sounds, it unfortunately seems rather true to me. This envelope had been sealed with the authorized stamp of the company, and I have seen this stamp before in official matters when I was negotiating with them. This might be a very well-made forgery, but the letter also informed me about innermost ongoings which can only be known to someone from within the factory. We do not know in which circumstances the picture was taken, but at the very moment it seems that our delegate at least helped a saboteur who tried to impair the smooth process of production. We will investigate this thoroughly. Is everyone with me on this?” He looked around into heated faces, some wanted to start the argument anew, but most of them slowly let out deep breaths and then nodded. “Very well. I propose that we have a break now where everyone recollects their cool, and I will make some telephone calls to gather more information on the matter. With them, we can decide afterwards how we proceed.” They all showed their agreement, then diverged from the table and scattered around the park. Von Bruchsal gesticulated for the caterers to serve the prepared food, then hurried into the castle to make the promised phone calls.

***

Undisturbed by this passionate discussion, its delinquent woke up early in their cabin way up high in the left envelope. Nemo yawned and stretched, then quickly dressed before descending into the gondola. Their guest and her dog were not up yet. They prepared everything for a quick breakfast, consisting of rolled oats and instant coffee. While they were checking their instruments, Adeanah came down into the gondola.  

“Good morning!” she greeted them and then yawned behind her hand.

“Good morning. Though I have a feeling that this won’t be really a good one” Nemo replied.

 Adeanah looked confused for a moment, then remembered what had brought them together yesterday and the cheeriness with which she had woken up swiftly left her.  “Damnit” she muttered and joined Nemo at the desk where they had laid out the breakfast. “So we better get going as quickly as possible. I just don’t know where.”

 Nemo nodded. “You’re right. Staying here would get us into even more trouble.”

Adeanah frowned. “Why ‘us’? It’s only me who has broken into the factory.”

 They nodded. “True. But by helping you to escape I made myself your accomplice and abused my diplomatic neutral status as a world traveller. I can fly wherever I want but I have obliged myself to keep out of any dispute, political or otherwise. By helping you, I’ve taken side with the environmentalists and have therefore broken the oath. Right now, I’m probably as outlawed as you are, considering that today there is held another summit of the World Collaboration that I work for. Or better say, _worked_ for. Word will get quickly to them, if it hasn’t already, and then they’ll be as much on my tail as they are on yours.”

 Adeanah needed a moment to digest the information. “So, where do we fly now? It would be madness to stay in Australia. Running from here immediately is our only chance to maybe stay under the radar.”

Nemo got up from the desk without a reply and walked over to the box full of drawn maps. They would have been plain stupid to not make copies for themselves. With a bunch of them on their arms they came back to the table and spread them, using the bowls and mugs as paperweights. “Let’s see: We’re not far from the east coast. As you said, and I agree with you here, we shouldn’t stay in Australia. Instead, we should escape over the islands located in the Pacific Ocean. There are not as many as there were some centuries ago, if my information is correct, but we should be able to find several that are still not part of the World Collaboration.” They traced a line from their current location somewhere in the woods around Pilliga towards the coast, roughly where Brisbane used to lie, then over the obsidian ocean to a group of islands that were called Kanaky. “If we get going right away, we can make it within a day and don’t even have to stop at the tiny islands to refuel.”  

Adeanah looked sceptical. “If you say so. But breaks are still important. For you, of course. I don’t think it’s healthy to fly for more than three hours at a stretch.”

Nemo grinned devilishly. “That’s where you can pay me back. I’ll put on autopilot so there’s not much you could do wrong.”

 “You want me to pilot an airship? You have no idea what you let yourself in for. Before I climbed into yours I’ve never been in one before. I am surprised myself that I’m not afraid of heights.”

 Nemo smirked. “I’d call this a start. Thanks to the stop at your house yesterday we should also be good on provisions. Then let’s get going!”


	6. Retreat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is calm now... or so it seems.

The flight over the Pacific Ocean was less troublesome than expected. Adeanah’s first time sitting in front of a steering wheel - admittedly with autopilot on - felt terrifying in the beginning but then got more and more exciting. Inala was there to keep her company while Nemo took a nap on a mattress beside the desk. They had agreed on staying in the cabin instead of going up into the balloon in case their skills were needed in an immediate emergency. But nothing like this occurred and they reached Kanaky without incidents.

The clouds cleared just when they were about to land. Nemo sent a signal by radio via a hardly-used channel that got picked up by the flight controller after several attempts. When he had given his permission to land he told them to wait for a moment. Nemo saw how the young man emerged from a round hut made of mud and roofed with reed, beside which stood an intriguingly carved totem pole. He guided them over to a grassy landing strip with the aid of two signalling discs. Nemo sat down their airship and helped the marshaller to secure it. Then he approached them with a broad smile.

 “ _Bienvenue,_ _voyageur solitaire_! My name is Pascal, I have heard so much about you!” he greeted Nemo enthusiastically. He even bowed a little.

 Adeanah, who had stepped out of the gondola, giggled. Nemo only rolled their eyes. They leaned into her and whispered “What did I tell you about the many names I have around the world? Here I am the ‘lonesome traveller’. Used to be much more precise than the Shan Guo one but also less romantic.” Then they turned to Pascal and inclined their head. “The pleasure is all mine. Thanks to my companion I have a new name which I advise you to use as yours is now obsolete. She calls me Nemo.”

 Pascal also bowed towards Adeanah who in return curtseyed. It hadn’t escaped her that Nemo had called her “their companion” rather affectionately and it made her smile. 

“Nice to meet you, I’m Adeanah” she introduced herself.

Pascal’s smile took a turn to the mischievous. “So you are the infamous ecological activist who broke into a fertilizing company?”

 “Word has already travelled here?” Her mouth hung open for a moment. 

“Of course, but don’t worry. We’re all on your side. Many of us are still struggling with the fate of the island” he said in a bitterly tone as he led them to the round hut he had come from. It turned out to be his home. “Most of us are descendants of criminals that were dispatched here from Paris when prisons and slavery where not enough anymore to ‘accommodate’ them. Though hardly any of them ever were felons. From what I gathered during my shifts at the archive in town the superiors just needed to do something against the overpopulation and so they punished every misdemeanour with prison. This then led to banishment to Kanaky, which was used to be known as Nouvelle-Calédonie, a Parisian overseas department.” He put a kettle on the stove and filled grounded coffee into a pitcher. 

Adeanah and Nemo had taken a seat and were listening with great interest. When he didn’t speak further, Adeanah dared to ask “And how is it today?”

  Pascal shrugged. “Well, with the end of the Traction Cities the Kanaky inhabitants were able negotiate a contract of independence with the newly installed Parisian government after the putsch against the last Traction mayor. But we are still viewed and treated like criminals by many former Traction Cities.”

 “Even after all this time?” Nemo sounded very surprised.

He chuckled cynically. “Yes, and many of them are part of the oh-so-advanced World Collaboration.”

Nemo went red when they heard about the atrocities of their former employer. “Shit. I didn’t know. I’m sorry” they apologized though there was little they could have done if they had known. Therefore their previous position had been too powerless.

 Pascal waved. “No need to apologize, at least not for you. Many of the simple people don’t know, and there are a lot of cities and countries, mostly from the former ATL, that support us. The school I went to has an exchange program with a school in Shan Guo, and Zagwa built the military bases in case we needed to defend ourselves. Luckily, this has not been necessary yet.” He poured the hot water over the coffee in the jug, stirred, and then filled three cups using a coffee dripper. He handed the full cups to his guests and sat beside them at the table.   “But enough of the grim past! Let’s talk about you!” he said cheerily and looked over to Adeanah, who blushed heavily.  

“Me? What do you want to hear?”  

“Talk about your bravery! Most of the people on the isle think you’re a hero, going in that factory all on your own and risking your life for the sake of nature.”

She toyed nervously with her mug. “I’m not a hero”, she mumbled “I was foolish and overhasty. With a little more respite I would have realized what an unwise idea the whole undertaking was. I mean, what did I achieve? Nothing!” Her head sank on her folded arms on the table.

Nemo and Pascal exchanged glances. Pascal shrugged and Nemo pursed their lips. They patted her on the upper arm. “I wouldn’t go this far. You have disrupted their process operation and shown them that their actions are not entirely supported by the people. You told me that you were right, that you could prove it with examination results. Why don’t you write an article and publish it under a pseudonym?”  Pascal raised his thumb in an approving gestured and nodded.

But Adeanah only groaned. “They will immediately know who has written the article.”

  “But do they know where you are? When Kanaky supports you they can certainly make sure how to keep you safe” Nemo retorted.

Adeanah slowly lifted her head. “You really think this is a good idea?”  

Nemo nodded with emphasis. “Absolutely. See, I’m not really in the mood for a hounding right now. We could never manage this on our own. Sooner or later we wouldn’t have the energy anymore to flee and then they would definitely catch us. But with help from outside, with people who can shield us from their retaliators we have the chance to stay below radar level for a lot longer and who knows: when enough time has passed they may have even forgotten us.”  

Nemo seemed to be so convinced of what they were talking about that Adeanah started to relax a little. There still were many doubts nagging at the back of her mind but maybe it really was better to stay here for a while. Constant stress to escape would only ruin their lives.  “Well, if that’s what you think. I only know what I could use at the moment: a long nap” she replied, exhaling deeply.

Nemo grinned. Pascal got up from his chair and indicated to a space at the back of the house behind a curtain. 

“There’s my mattress. Why don’t you lie down a little while Nemo and I prepare lunch?”

Adeanah pointed a finger at him. “Brilliant idea!” She lifted herself off the table and ambled over to the indicated area.

***

It was a true relief for both Nemo and Adeanah not having to worry about any pursuers. After lunch Pascal had shown them around the southern end of the island. First, he had taken them on a hike through the lush green jungle. A couple of most peculiar birds with greyish-blue plumage and long stilted legs hopped hysterically away when the three crossed their path. Those were kagus, Pascal explained, the island’s heraldic animals. Adeanah was particularly spell-bound by all the colourful flowers in full bloom. She spotted various kinds of orchids, passionflowers, and amaryllis, and hibiscus plants in vivid shades of red lined the tracks. Nemo showed way less interested in their surroundings; they were busy mopping the sweat from their forehead and wringing out their dripping wet shirt. Coming from the Northern Tribes, and spending most of the time in heights were temperatures barely reached the 0°C mark, they were not used to temperatures and humidity this high and they doubted that they were actually built for such conditions. Nonetheless, they trudged on and followed Pascal and Adeanah, who were chatting animatedly about the differences of Kanaky and Australian flora and fauna. Nemo was relieved when, finally, Pascal led them down to the beach and announced that it was time for a swim. More than happy, they shed their thin white tee-shirt, their prosthesis and the long brown cargo pants – they had left the heavy boots at Pascal’s house – and ran to the sea before Pascal or Adeanah were even done unbuttoning their shirts. With a yelp of glee, they splashed into waves.

 “Come on in!” they cried, motioning their friends to join them. They didn’t need to be told twice. Soon, the three were monkeying around in the water. Pascal tried to dunk Adeanah or Nemo several times, but he was on the losing side. The two air comrades teamed up and plunged him into the waves until all he could do was gaspingly swim out of reach. Nemo hadn’t had such fun in months, maybe years. They enjoyed the company and had nearly forgotten why they had chosen their solitary lifestyle in the first place.

After a long, exhausting, but most entertaining day, they sat outside on the porch together and enjoyed the barbecue Pascal had prepared for them. He himself lived on an outpost; the village was located beyond the end of the forest a few hundred yards away. He promised to take them down there the following day to show them the archive where he worked most of the time. As air traffic didn’t happen that often around here the job as flight controller was merely voluntary work.


	7. Mutiny On The Gropius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adeanah's and Nemo's break from their persecutors didn't last long.

Dawn hadn’t broken and yet Nemo was already up. They poured themselves a glass of water and stepped out on the porch. It wasn’t a surprise at all that they were awake. Sleep had scarcely visited them last night; it had just been too warm and too humid. But the conditions were rather nice for a long and relaxed walk and they had nowhere else to be this morning. Adeanah and Pascal wouldn’t be up for another couple of hours, so they had enough time to clear their head. They drowned the rest of the water, grabbed a skin filled with more and cast a last look at their peacefully sleeping companions before they softly closed the door. At the hem of the forest they spotted another couple of kagus and even though it was unlikely they thought it might be the two from yesterday. With a smile on their face they set off to explore the island on their own.

***

“How much further is it?” Oskar von Bruchsal inquired.

 “We should be there in two hours” Marshal Hansen answered as he looked on the screen showing the position of the _Mag-Lev_ airship.

  “ _Gott sei Dank_ ” von Bruchsal muttered and stepped away from the windshield, taking a seat and wiping his brow. Regardless that this wasn’t his first flight, he had never gotten the hang of what was so fascinating about flying. His preferred state was a ground that didn’t shake, sway or suddenly plunge down for no obvious reasons, thank you very much. But he had figured that as the host of the summit it was his duty to accompany the search party looking for the delegate. By no means was he here to imprison anybody, he simply wanted to hear their side of the story. His interests lay in diplomacy, not insensitive punishment. He dearly hoped that they could find a solution satisfying for all parties. Maybe they couldn’t work for the World Collaboration as a traveller anymore. But he would make sure that they wouldn’t end up in prison treated like an ordinary traitor. On this matter, the rest of the Wold Collaboration was supporting him. After he had been able to disperse the heat of the moment at the summit, everyone had worked together in a composed manner to find a diplomatic solution.

  It had taken a while to get from Weimar to West-Pilliga but he had spent most of the time asleep. Preparing the summit for days on end had taken a toll on him and he had basically collapsed on the bed in his cabin once all parameters had been regulated.   
 Once they had arrived in Pilliga, tracking the airship down had not been a big problem. People had sighted them in steady intervals until they had reached the coast, and word of what had happened had travelled just as fast. The trail vanished afterwards as they were now presumably flying over open sea. The board of the search party had nearly lost their determination but then they had received a cable from an island in the Pacific Ocean called Kanaky where the delegate and the saboteur had reportedly landed and obviously hadn’t the intention to leave soon. The whistleblower had sent the message anonymously and it was first debated if they could be trusted but von Bruchsal had decided that it was worth a shot. So they had set off again to the east and von Bruchsal hoped he could bring it all to a good end.

“Sir, we are nearly there” the Marshal informed him.

 “We are? How pleasant. Now, as I said before, once we have spotted the airship or one of the people travelling with it we send a signal and -“ he gasped “Hansen, what do you expect to achieve with that gun? Hansen, put that gun down!”

  “With all due respect, sir, but no. You have no longer control over the ship. We will not go gentle with them. I’m going to burn down that damned airship myself if necessary, we put the women in prison where they rightfully belong as traitors and while we’re at it we’re also going for the Kanaks. They’re nothing but scum anyway, filthy offspring of criminals that they are.” The Marshal spit on the floor, then motioned with the gun for von Bruchsal to back away. When he ran against an obstacle he gasped again and wanted to turn but a sneer from the Marshal made him stop. Instead he felt how handcuffs were applied to his wrists.   
  “Bring him to his cabin, he is under arrest.”

Von Bruchsal’s eyes narrowed. “This will have consequences” he growled. But the Marshal just laughed.

“You cannot intimidate me, you peace-loving wanker. You couldn’t throw a stuffed toy at me even if you wanted to. Have you not realized it? There are people who rule and people that are supposed to be ruled. And the Kanaks certainly belong to the latter.” The last thing von Bruchsal heard was the menacing laugh from the Australian marshal.

  The two stocky men beside von Bruchsal stared blankly ahead while they marched him to his cabin. After a turn into the last corridor von Bruchsal stopped. He knew them; they were Aaron and Kilian Müller, ten years his junior, and they had been in the same grade as his brother. Though they might have been younger their only trait worth mentioning was their bulky looks. They were slow on the uptake and as far as he knew also not very fast. He could hopefully use this to his advantage.

  “Why do you stop?” the one on his left, Aaron, asked and tried to push him further. Instead of an answer, von Bruchsal jerked his head in the direction of Aaron’s face and hit his nose with all the strength he could muster. Aaron loosened the grip around his arm and von Bruchsal tore free of him, driving his shoulder straight into Aaron’s sternum. He collapsed on the floor. Von Bruchsal turned his attention to Kilian who was swinging a right hook at him. It only earned him a patronizing smirk from von Bruchsal who ducked under the fist and instead leapt behind him from where he kicked him in the back. Kilian toppled onto his brother who was just about to recover and the two crashed against the wall of the narrow corridor. Von Bruchsal used their current state of inactiveness to escape. He needed to get rid of those handcuffs immediately. Then he remembered Eleonore who was still sitting in their cabin, probably brooding over her thesis. He needed to warn her.   
  Without the help of his hands to steady him after the run, he collided straight with the door frame. Before he could make himself audible, the door was opened and his wife looked positively puzzled at him.

  “Oskar-“ she started to ask but von Bruchsal cut her off with a kiss.

“No time for explanations, _meine Liebe_ , we need to run. Can you get those off me?” He nodded behind him towards his cuffed hands.

Eleonore turned him at the shoulders, picked a bobby pin from her hair do and set to work right away. After a bit of fiddling, the handcuffs came off.

“Thank you!” He kissed her on the temple, then pulled her away from the cabin.

“Oskar! Explain yourself!” she demanded.

He made a shushing sound. “Not so loud. The Marshal has mutinied against me, he’s now controlling the ship. He wants to imprison the delegate and activist, burn down the airship and enslave the natives.”

 Eleonore gasped. “How does he dare?” Shock appeared on her face, but it was quickly replaced by resolve. “How much time do we have?”

  “I’m not sure” he replied, a little out of breath. “The last time I checked we were nearly there. We probably have mere minutes to prevent the worst.”

  Eleonore raised her fist. “Then there’s no time to hesitate.” She suddenly lost her balance when the ship came to a halt. Von Bruchsal steadied her and they ran to one of the windows near the front of the gondola. What they saw left them dazed: the ship was about to descend on a clearing in the thick rain forest. A little ahead stood a circular hut roofed with reed. Belayed beside it was the delegate’s airship. Another impact shook the ship as it finally set down on the ground. Von Bruchsal and his wife pressed into a dark corner of the corridor when a bunch of soldiers hurried past them, led outside by the mad Marshal.

 “In behind them!” von Bruchsal ordered and he and his wife followed the mutineers. By now they had reached the hatch and Hansen was standing on the lowest stair. He raised a heavy rifle with a muzzle as thick as a wrist and aimed at the airship. With a swishing noise, the bullet raced through the air and hit one of the gasbags. For a second nothing happened and von Bruchsal had his hopes up that the _Egill Skallagrimsson_ was filled with non-combustible helium. But then the gasbag exploded into a blazing white and yellow fireball. The heat was so big that the second gasbag caught fire and burst as well after the flames had worked themselves through the envelope.

  Eleonore grasped von Bruchsal’s hand and squeezed it tightly, shock and horror written all over her face. “No!” she uttered mutely. Then something at the edge of the forest caught her attention. A young brown-skinned man in shorts and a flower shirt came running through the trees.

  “Look” she whispered into von Bruchsal’s ear and pointed at the young man.

He straightened himself. “A native! I have to warn him!”

But she held him back. “No, wait!” she urged and nodded towards the Marshal who was now aiming the rifle at the round hut.

  “Boom!” he said with childish glee as the cartridge hit the reed roof and set it ablaze. He shot a second time, through the open door, and struck the wooden furniture, conflagrating it too. 

The young man at the forest, who had sought refuge behind a tree when his home went up in flames, now ran to the _Mag-Lev_ ship.   
  “ _Toi diable! Salaud!_ ” he shouted, swinging his fist as if he could hit the Marshal from the distance.

“Filthy wog” Hansen muttered through gritted teeth and raised a pistol from his holster. Before he could pull the trigger, von Bruchsal had lunged forward and pushed him to the ground. Then he jogged towards the young native. 

“Run, boy, run! Tell your people and save yourself. Get away from the island if you can. They want to enslave y-“

Von Bruchsal suddenly stopped in his run, swayed and tumbled to the ground. Blood was seeping from a smoking gun hole in his back. Pascal lifted his gaze to see the Marshal who had his pistol still raised. He comprehended instantly what was about to happen, so he ducked and hastened zigzagways back to the forest. Hansen shot a handful of bullets more but they all missed Pascal.


	8. Daggers And Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oskar is dead but does it really mean that the Marshal has won?

Nemo couldn’t believe their eyes. Both their airship and Pascal’s hut were burning fiercely. They flinched when the framework holding the envelope of the airship came crashing down. They examined the rest of the scene. A man lay face first on the ground in a puddle of blood. At the opposite end of the clearing they saw a _Mag-Lev_ ship with a bunch of soldiers huddled at an open hatch; a little in front of them stood a man in uniform with a grey buzz cut and a gun held high. A flash of light caught their eye and they could make out a middle-aged lady lurking in the shadow of the hatch and holding a dagger. She was looking straight at the gun man. Nemo came to the conclusion that he was responsible for all this devastation and judging from the hesitant behavior of the soldiers, he was their superior. But the woman clearly wasn’t on his side, she seemed rather infuriated about the death of the man in the blood pool. So Nemo decided to help her. Luckily, they hadn’t been spotted yet.

Staying in the shade of the trees, they circuited the place of destruction until they had reached the _Mag-Lev_ ship from behind. Just in this moment the woman sprang from the shadows, dagger raised, and landed on the back of the gun man. Before the soldiers could react, Nemo had kicked one of them in the back, pressing all the air from his lungs. He lurched forward to seek support from his comrades. One steadied the falling soldier, the other two turned to take care of the intruder. But Nemo had stepped away from the spot they’d just been standing in. Instead, they crouched down and then shot up like a Jack in the box to hit one of them at the point of the chin, causing him to cry out in pain before he passed out and fell to the ground like a logged tree. The remaining three soldiers came for them but a terrible war cry let them all, Nemo included, pause for a moment. The woman with the dagger sat on top of the gun man. She smirked triumphantly and devilishly and wiped the blood from her weapon. The gun man himself didn’t move any more, his thorax had been perforated by several deep wounds from which the blood still spurted. The dagger woman looked over to the huddle, issued another cry and then leapt at the soldier standing closest to her. He raised his pistol but she was at him before he could pull the trigger. With the dagger she aimed for his throat. He could fling her off but then he lost his footing when someone swept away his feet. The woman rolled back on her feet and jumped on top of him, driving the dagger straight into his voicebox. The sounds the soldier made were far from pleasant, it was a gurgling and cries that came out crippled. Nemo in the meantime was busy with the two remaining soldiers. They struck the knee of the soldier to their right, and a nasty ripping sound could be heard. They repeated the procedure on his other knee and he flipped to the ground, crying in pain.

Only one soldier was left. He looked at his companions: one was dead, one unconscious and one convolved in agony. Then he looked at his opponents. The dagger woman was blood-smeared and a mad grin adorned her face. The other one just dusted her knees and elbows, as if she had been merely pushed down, before she looked at him expectantly. He threw his gun to the ground and held his arms up, all the while secretly checking possible exits. But there were none. “I surrender, I surrender” he said in a  squeaky voice.

“That’s what I thought” the dagger woman said and pulled handcuffs from a hidden pocket in her skirts. With them she chained him to the rail of the stairs. Then she looked at her fight partner. “And who are you, if I may ask?”

Nemo, who only now had gotten a proper look at the expensive and noble dress of the woman, bowed a little. “My name is Nemo, I am the delegate of the World Collaboration.”

The woman’s eyes went wide. “You are the delegate? What a pleasure to finally meet you. My hus-, my late husband Oskar von Bruchsal, _Gott hab ihn selig_ , could only find praise for you and your hard work.” She extended a hand.

Nemo shook it. “So you are Eleonore von Bruchsal? Nice to meet you, too. I only heard good things about you as well.”  

Another explosion from the airship tore them out of their bubble. Nemo looked at the airship, then at the hut and realization hit them like a truck. “Adeanah?” they mumbled.

Eleonore leaned forward. “Who?”

But Nemo didn’t pay attention to her. They were already in a jog, running towards the burning hut. “Adeanah!” they shouted again. And again. And again. But they didn’t get an answer. They stood in front of the flaring ruin of Pascal’s home, the heat grazing their skin before their knees buckled. “No, no, no” they repeated over and over. With a last “No!” cried into the cloudy sky they burst into tears. Eleonore appeared at their side. “Ssh,” she said and caressed their head which she had pulled to her shoulder. She rocked back and forth with Nemo and she didn’t stop, even as the sky opened it locks. The rain came down in torrents, drowning out the flames and soaking the two left-behinds to their bones.

***

Pascal came wheezingly back from the forest. When he reached the spot where Adeanah and Inala were standing he bent over, panting.

“Pascal? Are you okay? Why have you run? Where’s Nemo?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” she demanded, her voice jumping a few notes higher.

“I haven’t seen them, that’s what it means. But the search party has arrived. Though they’re not just searching for you. They want to enslave us.”

“What? But how do you know?” She followed him when he started walking again towards the village.

“A man warned me. And then he was shot by a military man. He’s probably after us now so we better get going. I’ll take this side of the village, you take the other one. We bring the people out to the market place and then take them to the harbour.”

Adeanah was silent for a moment before she nodded. “Okay. And you really haven’t seen Nemo?” She sounded very worried.

Pascal stopped and took her hand. “No, I haven’t. But I’m sure they are okay.” He hesitated for a moment, quickly glanced at her, then looked away.

“What?”

Pascal shook his head. “Nothing.”

Adeanah narrowed her eyes. “What happened, Pascal? Tell me!” she demanded.

He sighed. “They burnt down my hut. And the airship.” He immediately regretted his decision to tell her.

She looked as she was about to explode. “And you tell me that Nemo will be fine? We have to go back, _now_!”

Adeanah was about to turn but Pascal held her back. “We cannot help them. There’s a bunch of soldiers together with this... assassin or whatever he is. We would be dead the moment we step onto the clearing. And anyway, we have already wasted too much time. We need to rescue the villagers.”

“How dare you say we have wasted time!” She was still fuming but followed him anyway.

When all the perplexed villagers were finally assembled on the market place Adeanah paused for a moment and looked up the slope. A thought crept up in her mind. “Pascal?”

Pascal, who was trying to calm a confused and agitated elderly women, turned to her, a little unnerved. “Yes?”

“Don’t you think that by now the soldiers would be here? I know we hurried but as you said: we had wasted a little time when I was arguing with you earlier.”

Pascal didn’t have the nerve for riddles right now. “Your point?”

“Well, I don’t think the soldiers are coming. Something’s holding them back.”

“All the better. So what exactly are you complaining about?” He turned to the lady again and tried to guide her to the boat where everybody else was waiting.

“I’m not complaining. I just think they’re not coming at all. That’s why I’m going back.”

Pascal finally paid her full attention. “Wait, no! Are you kidding? Adeanah!” But she wasn’t listening to him. She jogged up the slope and the last annoyed “Adeanah!” Pascal was shouting after her was swept away by the wind.

The first thing Adeanah saw was the burnt-down hut. Clouds of smoke rose from the blackened wood and the ghostly image sent a shiver down her spine. She stepped into the ruin, avoiding spears of splintered wood. But there was no body in there. Nemo hadn’t been here. She wiped away some cold sweat from her forehead and tried to calm her fast beating heart. But then she saw the skeleton of the airship behind the collapsed wall and her heart started racing again. If Nemo hadn’t been here then maybe they’d been in their ship, to check something or to do the-Gods-knew-what. Adeanah jumped over the remains of the wall and rushed to the malformed framework of the _Egill Skallagrimsson_. She examined the smouldering wreck, then took a deep breath and shouted “Nemo!” at the top of her lungs.

For a moment it felt as if the world had stopped moving. Adeanah held her breath and prayed that Nemo - anybody, really - would answer her shout. But there was nobody who could answer her. Only silence that felt like a thick blanket engulfing her in a merciless embrace, threatening to choke her here and now. Faintly she heard steps in the far distance but this couldn’t be. No one was here so she was probably hallucinating. She was alone. She had lost Nemo. Not even her dog was here to comfort her. Adeanah took another deep breath and rubbed at her eyes but there were no tears to dab away. Now she heard a smacking noise coming steadily nearer, just like someone running over the wet grass in heavy boots - but no. It was all in her imagination.

Completely unexpected, something barrelled into her, thrusting her unintentionally to the ground. For a second she lay there in the grass and blinked, trying to comprehend the fact that there clearly was somebody lightweight lying on top of her. Then she rolled around, pushed her unruly hair out of her face and looked up. The face she saw herself presented with was so unanticipated yet so welcomed that she burst into laughter. She was so happy to see this particular face that tears streamed down her face and she was unable to say something.

“You sure know how to give me a fright. I really thought you were dead” Nemo said grinning as they made themselves comfortable on top of Adeanah.

“Me dead? I thought you were dead, having been roasted in that airship of yours.” Adeanah wiped away her tears of joy. They both looked over at the relics of the airship.

Nemo heaved a sigh and got up on their knees. They helped Adeanah to sit up. “Yeah, well. That _was_ my airship.”

Adeanah put her hand on top of theirs. “I’m sorry” she said sincerely.

Nemo stared ahead, then shook their head and shrugged. “Don’t be.”

Adeanah had finally discovered the _Mag-Lev_ at the end of the clearing. “Are these our pursuers? Even though you betrayed them, as you’ve claimed, they never had the right to burn your ship down. Let us talk some sense into them.” Adeanah determinedly got up and now it was her who pulled Nemo to their feet.

They walked silently towards the ship, and Nemo could feel the anger boiling under Adeanah’s skin. When she wanted to head for the bridge they held her back. “We can do that later, it’s not urgent. Eleonore von Bruchsal needs time to mourn her dead husband.”

Adeanah frowned. “Who’s Eleonore von Bruchsal? Or her husband?”

Nemo shook their head. “I’ll explain to you later. Let’s call Pascal that he can end the evacuation and then we’ll find something to eat. I’m starving.”


	9. At The Campfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All is well.
> 
>  
> 
> Or is it?

Pascal had finally stopped talking. Nemo turned away from him and sighed in relief. Someone nudged them softly in the ribs and when they looked to Adeanah, she could barely hide her smile as well. They both had figured that Pascal was a very chatty person but that he would start blabbering like _this_ was a surprise after all. Nemo couldn’t even recall what he had been talking about, it were just too many words coming out of his mouth way too fast.

 “It’s been a long day guys, I’m going to bed” Pascal announced after he had stared into the campfire for a while, contemplating.

Nemo snorted. “Good night Pascal.” Mere minutes ago he had given the impression that he could go on babbling for days.

“Yeah, g’night” Adeanah said.

They sat in silence for a moment before Nemo got up from the log. “I’ll go and have a look at how Elly is doing. I’m a little worried because she didn’t come out for dinner.”

“She just lost her husband. I probably wouldn’t be in the mood for a campfire, too, if I had lost you.” Adeanah said frankly.

Nemo gave her a half smile. “Still. I’ll be back soon.” They went inside the _Gropius_ and walked to Eleonore’s cabin. It was quiet inside the room, but they decided to knock anyway.

“Come on in, please!” Eleonore called from the other side of the door and her voice sounded calm and controlled.

Nemo opened but hesitated in the door frame. “Ah, it’s you, Nemo. Is everything alright? You look so tired.”

Nemo chuckled. “I wanted to ask you the same thing. You haven’t come out for dinner.”

Eleonore tilted her head in confusion. Then she seemed to realize. “Oh! No, there’s no need to fret. I’m doing fine, as far as is it possible under those circumstances anyway.”

“Elly...” Nemo came over to her and reached for her shoulders. “You don’t have to play the tough one. We all understand it if you were a, uh, blubbering mess” they said comfortingly.

Eleonore laughed. “I know that, and I appreciate your support. I just don’t _feel_ like this right now. It might change once he is buried at home and I must live alone in the castle. But so far it all feels like this had happened to somebody else. Like I hadn’t been Oskar’s wife but any Weimar citizen who learns about the death of the mayor but has never had an emotional bond to him. Do you know what I mean?”

She looked up to Nemo who was standing behind her. “I do. Emotional distance is something I’m very familiar with. On the contrary, I’m rather confused about the torrent of feelings I have since Adeanah climbed up into my airship.”

A knowing smile appeared on Eleonore’s face. “So you two are in love?”

Nemo shook their head. “It’s not that easy. But I certainly feel affection and respect for her. Adeanah has made it quite clear that I’m important to her. I - I just have to talk to her about this. Maybe I can sort my thoughts that way.” They stared out of the window into the purple and golden sunset.

When Eleonore moved under their hands they stepped back to let her get up and looked at her. Her smile could have put a glaring lamp to shame. “Yes, do that! Sorrow and happiness always lie close together. I hope that it will all work out in your favour. Come here!” Eleonore spread her arms and waited until Nemo returned the embrace. “Don’t worry about me, Nemo. I will be fine” she said while still hugging them. When they let go of each other she added. “I have a dear wish though.”

Nemo crossed her arms, smiling but with one eyebrow raised. “What is it?”

Eleonore seemed to be nervous for some reason. “I would like - I mean, would you accompany me back to Weimar? I know that there is trouble waiting for you. Oskar would have had a plan on how to make it the least difficult for both of you, but he didn’t tell me. We have to figure something out on our own, so I understand if you wouldn’t want to come.”

Nemo smiled softly. “Of course, we come with you. Sooner or later we would have to face the consequences of what we’ve done anyway and the sooner we get over it the better. And I don’t leave someone I’ve fought with behind just like that. Concerning our punishment: well, we’ll get to that once we’re on our way to Weimar. Then there’s still plenty of time for brainstorming. I’d suggest that you go to bed now, and if you need company I would be happy to move in with you for a couple of nights.”

Eleonore was suddenly sobbing when some of the overwhelming feelings that had left her alone until now swept over her. “Thank you, Nemo.”

“I have to thank you, for protecting us all from a Marshall gone mad.” They squeezed her hands.

Eleonore wiped her tears away and said “Actually, I would like to accept your offer. I wouldn’t want to be by myself tonight.”

“Of course. I’ll just go outside and talk to Adeanah about my, er, feelings, and then I’ll be back. Can she come, too?”

“What did you think!” Eleonore gave her a lopsided smile.

When Nemo was at the door, they turned and waved a little. “Until later then.”

Adeanah sprang to her feet when she saw Nemo coming through the hatch. “That has taken you quite a while” she remarked with a teasing grin.

“It has. We had a few things to talk about.” They hesitated a moment and then said, not looking at Adeanah, “Can we sit down for a moment?”

Adeanah raised her eyebrows. “Why so serious all of a sudden?”

Nemo sighed. “Because it’s a serious matter I want to discuss with you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. But you don’t need to worry. See, Elly and I talked about her husband, well, it was mostly her talking, but then we ended up talking about love in general.” They stopped, still not looking at Adeanah. Instead, they nervously shuffled with their boots.

  Adeanah gave them a minute, then she asked “And?” though she had a feeling about where this was leading.

“In the end we talked about you. And me. Elly asked me if we were in love.” Only now dared Nemo to look up, anticipation showing on their face.

“You want to hear my opinion? My honest opinion?” Adeanah asked brashly.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less” Nemo answered, and the tension started to drain from them. Adeanah’s straight-forward attitude always managed to give them confidence as well.

“ _I_ was smitten the moment I saw you. You were just so mysterious, flying around the world all on your own in an outdated airship. And you helped me escape from one hell of a situation, so that might have tinted my vision a little. But then I got to know you properly. You always find a solution for, like, everything, you’re smart, and you never made me feel like I’m a stranger. I wasn’t able, by any chance, to not like you.”

“Gosh!” Nemo was hiding their face in their gloved hands. “You have no idea how hard I’m blushing right now.”

“But it’s true! No false modesty please.”

Nemo sighed and looked up again. “I know that it’s true. At least something tells me that. It’s just - feelings have never been my strong suit.” For a minute they were just staring at each other.

Then Adeanah asked, sounding anxiously, “Can I kiss you?”

Nemo’s eyes went wide. “No!”

“Oh, okay.” Adeanah leaned away from them ashamedly.

“No, that’s not what I mean! I, uh, just can’t return your feelings like this. I really, _really_ like you. Maybe not right from the start like you did but I’ve grown a certain fondness for you. But romance, that has never been my thing. I don’t think I’m actually capable of romantic feelings. The only relationships I had were companionable ones. But those were strong, especially in my time at the orphanage. Just like the one with you. You make me laugh, you always radiate positivity and I feel safe with you. Safe enough to not wear my gloves all the time. I scared you a little when I pulled the right one off, I know. Truth to be told, my prosthesis is sometimes still bothering me. But you, you accept me as I am.” They paused, looked at their hands, and then flushed again. “Goodness, that was some really cheesy stuff.”

Adeanah burst out into giggles. “Totally was. But you meant it, right?”

Nemo nodded, answering with their own smile. “I totally do. So I, uh, might wouldn’t want to kiss you but nothing objects to a hug.”

“Aww! Come here!” Adeanah patted her lap and Nemo got up to make themselves comfortable in her arms. “That works just fine for me” she added and nuzzled her face into Nemo’s flat chest. They put their arm around her back and rested their head on hers.

After a while they remembered something. “I promised Elly to sleep in her room tonight to chase her demons away. Are you with me on this?”

Adeanah didn’t look up but Nemo felt her nod against their chest. “Sure” she answered, her voice muffled by the fabric of their shirt, “I’ve always wanted to play demon hunter when I was little.”

Nemo laughed. “Silly.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story originated as the term paper for my seminar Science Fiction. I have now gotten a mark from my professor but I would be more than happy to get feedback from you!
> 
> Also, let me know if you want to have added the glossary and the summary of the books that I included in the term paper.


End file.
